


it comes in threes

by deathofthenorm



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Horcruxes, M/M, Psychological Horror, Psychological Trauma, Under the Influence of Horcruxes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-24 21:30:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16183559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathofthenorm/pseuds/deathofthenorm
Summary: tap tap tap. he felt every beat crawl up his spine to throb in his skull. tap tap tap. that one simple sound haunted him, always the same. it comes in threes.





	it comes in threes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kurofu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurofu/gifts).



> be spooped kiddies

Nightmares were no strangers to Harry. They had scratched at his skull since his childhood. He remembered waking up without a voice, his body shaking, cold tears abandoned on his skin. It’s an odd feeling, knowing that only moments ago, you were terrified, but now, you feel… nothing. His emotions evaporated on his skin. Like sweat away in the breeze.

There is an eerie numbness that followed him. A feeling as though something unknown lived just behind his eyelids, but he was too scared to look. He didn’t want to face that monster. He did not want to know the creature who made his home in Harry’s mind and kept him hostage there. He was far more content with abandoning his memories of terror as soon as sleep left him. 

The normal creaks and groans of Grimmauld Place now caused him to flinch. What was once a mere annoyance was now a paranoid reality. Or so it seemed. 

Sometimes Harry’s would swear he could hear an unknown tapping sound. 

_tap, tap, tap._

Always in threes did it come. At first, he thought it was a tapping on the windows. But whenever he checked, there was nothing to be found. Slowly, as time crawled on, Harry got a sinking feeling low in his chest. 

_‘If the tapping isn’t from the glass on the windows… where else could it be…?’_ The bags under Harry’s eyes grew darker in color when the tapping began now at night. He could pinpoint only that it belonged to something in the hallway at the very entrance of the place. As though something were guarding his only way out.

A part of him was relieved to escape the horrors behind his eyes, but another was even more frightened. He knew he wouldn’t remember anything scary when he woke up, but... this wasn’t a dream anymore.

This was reality.

One evening he sat, eating quietly by himself. There was no one else, but Harry had long ago become accustomed to his solitude. It was that evening however, something new dawned on Harry. 

_‘If that tapping isn’t from the windows… maybe… it’s from the mirrors.’_ the chair screeched as he abruptly stood. Harry swallowed hard, steeling himself for what he might find. He stepped out of the room, and headed for the hallway mirror. It was old and clouded, the frame faded and cracking. 

Harry stopped a few feet away, just before he’d be able to see his own reflection in the mirror. Or, what he hoped to be his own reflection. 

_ tap tap tap. _

He took a deep breath, before in a split second decision, walked forward to face his fears.

Harry found his own tried and angry face staring back at him. His hair was even more of a mess than usual, very much needing a trim. His skin was pale and unhealthy, the bags under his eyes making his whole face look puffy and swollen. 

A sigh fell from his lips. While he wasn’t thrilled with the sight before him, it was better than anything else that he thought might have been lurking in the mirror. 

But Harry was foolish.

Just as he was about to turn away and continue on with his now certainly cold meal, he saw movement in the mirror from the corner of his eye. Harry turned back, his body stiffening as he watched an unknown, shadowed man walk towards him in the mirror. 

He was too stunned to look over his shoulder. As the man approached, a feeling of dread settled deep into Harry’s bones. The unknown man was no longer unknown to him. He remembered that face very clearly. Young and handsome, hiding the pit viper behind his eyes. 

“Riddle.” Harry’s voice was low, disguising his fear much better than he had expected.

Tom stopped just behind Harry’s shoulder. He reached out a pale hand, over Harry’s shoulder. His clean nails knocked on the mirror, once, twice, 

_ tap tap, tap.  _

“Harry Potter, nice to know you remember me. Since I know you’ve been trying so, so hard to forget.” A cold shiver ran down Harry’s spine at the silk words the elder boy spoke. “No matter how hard you try, you’ll never forget the monster you truly are Harry. The monster we are.”

“How are you here?” Harry’s voice kept it’s low and threatening tone. The anger he felt being matched only by the fear. Fear of the creature just over his shoulder. Fear of the man, who was no longer a man at all.

“I am always with you Harry, you know this.” Tom spoke cooly. He spoke as though this were simply a normal conversation. As though he hadn’t been dead for years. As though he wasn’t just a part of Harry’s mind.

“Why are you here?” A growl rumbled from deep in the younger man’s throat. The anger slowly started to outweigh the fear. 

“Why do you keep running?” Harry froze at his words. Tom smirked in the mirror. He could almost taste the venom on his lips. Tom leaned down, his face inches away from Harry as he spoke quietly into his ear. “Face me like a real man. Face what you are.”

Harry felt the breath on his neck and his body reacted before his mind could process. There was a sound of shattering glass and a stinging on his knuckles. Blood dripped onto the old floor. Surely not the first time the crimson liquid had melted into the floorboards.

The mirror was shattered. 

Harry stood, his body shaking slightly from the adrenaline on his tongue and the hatred in his veins. 

“Disgusting snake.” the boy spat at the shards, vision clearing from it’s red hue. Harry’s breath shook in his lungs, tears long forgotten stinging his eyes. 

“But what does that make you?” the silken voice crawled into his ears and sliced at his mind. Harry shreaked and clutched his head, closing his eyes and falling to his knees. The broken glass sliced at his flesh but went unnoticed. 

Harry lay, curled up in a ball on the floor of Grimmauld Place. His body shook with sobs as be bled, alone and forgotten. His mind like the state of the old clouded mirror. Shattered.


End file.
